


Say My Name, Say My Name

by VictoryRoad



Series: The Holiday Sessions [2]
Category: The Wicked + The Divine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 03:46:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6595291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoryRoad/pseuds/VictoryRoad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short Luci vignette, originally written for a project where I wrote 1000 words on random prompts from friends.</p><p>http://jondarthur.tumblr.com/holidaysessions</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say My Name, Say My Name

_Le Petite Mort,_ every time I get on stage. It’s hard to describe it beyond that. It’s trite, isn’t it? I need a metaphor for the rush, for the exhilaration, for the _connection_ , and all I can come back to is sex. I’m a hack. Lock me up and throw away the key. I mean, I get protesters at shows like no one else. Maybe they should. It’s hard to breathe knowing others want you to stop, that they chant about it. What can I say, the devil may care. There are plenty of other things for me to spend time and effort on.

But oh, the fans. They’re what makes it worth it, right? I mean, standing on that stage, feeling the rush come over you as a thousand - two thousand, more yet – people scream your God-given name at the top of their lungs? Then, later, when you’re in a much smaller group, they scream your name in a much more soul-bearing wail. I’m no Sakhmet, but the woman has the gist of it. When a thousand people want you, want to be you, want to be with you, it bridges that gap you find in the cold of the night. What’s the use in being a god if you can’t connect with anyone, right?

Baal doesn’t quite get it. He’s the straightest power bottom I know. There’s a certain _je ne sais quois_ to his chastisement – I find myself making the same few excuses. ‘They want this’. ‘Nobody is doing anything they don’t wanna do’. I try not to say ‘I need this’. What right does he have to tell me that I shouldn’t sleep with the occasional fan? I don’t, anyway. Not really. Not like some of the others do. What little there is? That’s comfort.

There’s something about just lying there, someone’s arms around you – knowing that even if their love is fleeting, unsteady, strictly empassioned, that they want to be there. I don’t really want to be there, so anyone else wanting to be around me feels… strange. It’s a little glitch in my head that I can’t quite reconcile. Why me? I’m a God. I demand worship. Why me? Low, beneath me, clamouring for me, I can’t understand any of it. Sometimes I just want to sleep, and let it all drift away from beneath me. There’s arms around me as I do. They’re not often there when I wake.

I’m not sure if it was a slip-up. Not really. I started watching some of the post-show flake-outs. They seem peaceful – I’ve done my thing, everyone’s been taken to church, and in a back room lie the poor folks who didn’t quite make it through. Fine, just a little buzzed, a little light-headed, a little groggy as they wake. It’s probably predatory, but who better to watch you sleep than the devil, right? It’s hard, sometimes, to reconcile a crowd with the individuals. I’m not sure if I slipped up. I just don’t think I should have started doing it.

I remember Minerva sidling up to me one night, after another long and tedious reminder that we apparently have obligations. I guess she counselled me? I don’t really know. It wasn’t so much a conversation as a moment of staring. She walks up, she sits down, and suddenly I’m the passed out truth-seeker, waking up from a wonderful delirium. I don’t know that I wanted her there. Maybe that was the point. It’s hard to tell sometimes. Gods aren’t opaque, and Minerva’s still so young. God, so young, and with such a burden. That’s the one thing I can’t take. We all know what’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen to her.

Who cares, right? Two years is an eternity when you’re on stage, arms wide, that crowd of thousands receiving your holy gospel. It goes in two waves – first you hear the protesters, good ol’ folks who want nothing more than the beast herself to sink back into the earth. Then you hear the crowd. After a little while, you realise the crowd was just reacting to you, but it doesn’t really matter. The tide comes in, and you drown.

I guess that’s why I sit by bedsides, watching that half-sleep all those passed-out wisdom-worshippers fall into. It’s confident, in a way. There’s no second guessing falling apart. You can’t be abject and doubt yourself. A God can’t consume. They can. It’s… different. Something I’ve given up. In two years, I’ll be dead. Asleep for good. It might be nice, in a weird way, to not be in control. Even as a God, I can’t say for certain what comes next. I hope I get to stay. I hope I get to sit in the underworld, weeping and waiting for whatever Orpheus comes calling. I am the Lord of Hell. He won’t be coming for me.

I don’t care.

There’s a cute girl who collapsed tonight. I’ve got to admit, I like her look. I might give her a taste. I need someone else along for the ride, to just take away that little bit of extra control. Something tied to me that I can’t steer. A little night music. There’s something about her. Probably just so many lifetimes’ worth of seeing the same eyes, tessellated again and again until you notice the pattern. Yeah, I’ll probably take her home. Chances are Sakhmet will claim her. Doesn’t matter. I’m more invested in this – the little death. Lying on the floor of a shitty club where no one really played any music.

I remember being that girl once, named for a forty-year-old song and smoking bad cigarettes in the dark. I didn’t control anything. I wanted the power. I wanted that exhilaration. This is what I get. Maybe someone will take it away. Maybe I just need to burn it all down. I don’t know. I really don’t know.

Maybe when this girl wakes up, things will be different. I doubt it.


End file.
